How Vaping Helped Me Quit Cigarettes

Vaping helped me ditch cigarettes and kill my nicotine-dependence

By Ryan Standifird

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When I was growing up, I never thought I would smoke a cigarette. I was the soccer captain at my high school, I ate healthy, and I surrounded myself with friends who didn’t smoke or do drugs. Sure, I was offered a cigarette here and there at parties, but I always turned it down with ease. It never seemed appealing to me to smoke a cigarette.

But that all changed during my freshman year of college. A lot of my new college friends smoked, and after turning them down time after time, I finally gave in and tried one. There were some really good, deep conversations that took place over a cigarette. It was a social tool that instantly let me connect with another smoker, and it was that social aspect that eventually led to me buying my own packs, rolling my own cigarettes and giving a lot of money to Big Tobacco.

I tried multiple times to quit smoking over the span of four years. The longest I made it was about a month. The problem was the nicotine; I had become an addict, and every time I went without a cigarette I became a huge jerk. I wanted to leave smoking behind me, but the one thing I couldn’t tackle was my physical and mental addiction to the nicotine.

I first tried vaping as an alternative to smoking cigarettes in late 2012. It worked fine for a couple weeks—but it just wasn’t the same as smoking a real cigarette.

In 2012, the vaping industry was still relatively new. The technology was subpar, and the liquids were still being perfected. But now, after seeing how far vape technology has come in only two years, I thought that I’d give it another chance.

I went into this experiment with the mindset that I could use vaping to ween myself off my addiction to nicotine. As the vaping liquids come in different nicotine concentrations, I thought it would be effective for me to slowly reduce the amount of nicotine that my body was receiving. Then, when it came time to take nicotine out of the equation entirely, the physical withdrawal symptoms wouldn’t be so intense.

Vape Revolution is one of the largest and most established vape shops in Southern California. Based in Orange County, they supply vaping devices and liquids with the goal of helping people quit smoking cigarettes. When I told them about the article I was writing, they jumped on board and offered me everything I would need to make the transition from cigarettes to vaping, and eventually to freedom from my nicotine addiction. “That’s the ultimate goal,” said CEO/Founder Charn Premyodhin. “We want to help others make the switch.” Premyodhin is a former cigarette smoker and chef who uses his culinary flavor palette to create his own unique e–liquid flavors.